The present invention is directed to a method of operating a power controller that supplies a specified power to a load, and more particularly to a method of starting a voltage converter that converts line voltage to a suitable RMS load voltage, and to a lamp with a soft-start power supply.
Some loads, such as lamps, operate at a voltage lower than a line (or mains) voltage of, for example, 120V or 220V, and for such loads a voltage converter that converts line voltage to a lower operating voltage must be provided. The power supplied to the load may be controlled with a phase-control clipping circuit that typically includes an RC circuit. Moreover, some loads operate most efficiently when the power is constant (or substantially so). However, line voltage variations are magnified by these phase-control clipping circuits due to their inherent properties (as will be explained below) and the phase-control clipping circuit is desirably modified to provide a (more nearly) constant RMS load voltage.
A simple four-component RC phase-control clipping circuit demonstrates a problem of conventional phase-control clipping circuits. The phase-controlled clipping circuit shown in FIG. 1 has a capacitor 22, a diac 24, a triac 26 that is triggered by the diac 24, and resistor 28. The resistor 28 may be a potentiometer that sets a resistance in the circuit to control a phase at which the triac 26 fires.
In operation, a clipping circuit such as shown in FIG. 1 has two states. In the first state the diac 24 and triac 26 operate in the cutoff region where virtually no current flows. Since the diac and triac function as open circuits in this state, the result is an RC series network such as illustrated in FIG. 2. Due to the nature of such an RC series network, the voltage across the capacitor 22 leads the line voltage by a phase angle that is determined by the resistance and capacitance in the RC series network. The magnitude of the capacitor voltage VC is also dependent on these values.
The voltage across the diac 24 is analogous to the voltage drop across the capacitor 22 and thus the diac will fire once breakover voltage VBO is achieved across the capacitor. The triac 26 fires when the diac 24 fires. Once the diac has triggered the triac, the triac will continue to operate in saturation until the diac voltage approaches zero. That is, the triac will continue to conduct until the line voltage nears zero crossing. The virtual short circuit provided by the triac becomes the second state of the clipping circuit as illustrated in FIG. 3.
Triggering of the triac 26 in the clipping circuit is forward phase-controlled by the RC series network and the leading portion of the line voltage waveform is clipped until triggering occurs as illustrated in FIGS. 4–5. A load attached to the clipping circuit experiences this clipping in both voltage and current due to the relatively large resistance in the clipping circuit.
Accordingly, the RMS load voltage and current are determined by the resistance and capacitance values in the clipping circuit since the phase at which the clipping occurs is determined by the RC series network and since the RMS voltage and current depend on how much energy is removed by the clipping.
With reference to FIG. 6, clipping is characterized by a conduction angle a and a delay angle θ. The conduction angle is the phase between the point on the load voltage/current waveforms where the triac begins conducting and the point on the load voltage/current waveform where the triac stops conducting. Conversely, the delay angle is the phase delay between the leading line voltage zero crossing and the point where the triac begins conducting.
Define Virrms as RMS line voltage, Vorms as RMS load voltage, T as period, and ω as angular frequency (rad) with ω=2πf.
Line voltage may vary from location to location up to about 10% and this variation can cause a harmful variation in RMS load voltage in the load (e.g., a lamp). For example, if line voltage were above the standard for which the voltage conversion circuit was designed, the triac 26 may trigger early thereby increasing RMS load voltage. In a halogen incandescent lamp, it is particularly desirable to have an RMS load voltage that is nearly constant.
Changes in the line voltage are exaggerated at the load due to a variable conduction angle, and conduction angle is dependent on the rate at which the capacitor voltage reaches the breakover voltage of the diac. For fixed values of frequency, resistance and capacitance, the capacitor voltage phase angle (θC) is a constant defined by θC=arc tan(−ωRC). Therefore, the phase of VC is independent of the line voltage magnitude. However, the rate at which VC reaches VBO is a function of Virrms and is not independent of the line voltage magnitude.
FIG. 7 depicts two possible sets of line voltage Vi and capacitor voltage VC. As may be seen therein, the rate at which VC reaches VBO varies depending on Virrms. For RC phase-control clipping circuits the point at which VC=VBO is of concern because this is the point at which diac/triac triggering occurs. As Virrms increases, VC reaches VBO earlier in the cycle leading to an increase in conduction angle (α2>α1), and as Virrms decreases, VC reaches VBO later in the cycle leading to a decrease in conduction angle (α2<α1).
Changes in Virrms leading to exaggerated or disproportional changes in Vorrms are a direct result of the relationship between conduction angle and line voltage magnitude. As Virrms increases, Vorrms increases due to both the increase in peak voltage and the increase in conduction angle, and as Virrms decreases, Vorrms decreases due to both the decrease in peak voltage and the decrease in conduction angle. Thus, load voltage is influenced twice, once by a change in peak voltage and once by a change in conduction angle, resulting in unstable RMS load voltage conversion for the simple phase-control clipping circuit.
When the phase-control power controller is used in a voltage converter of a lamp, the voltage converter may be provided in a fixture to which the lamp is connected or within the lamp itself. U.S. Pat. No. 3,869,631 is an example of the latter, in which a diode is provided in the lamp base for clipping the line voltage to reduce RMS load voltage at the light emitting element. U.S. Pat. No. 6,445,133 is another example of the latter, in which transformer circuits are provided in the lamp base for reducing the load voltage at the light emitting element.
Each of these devices is a power controller that converts the line voltage to an RMS load voltage and that includes a circuit that clips (in references '804, '801, and '826) or modulates (in reference '802) the load voltage to provide the RMS load voltage. The amount of clipping or modulation in the circuit is defined by a time-based signal source that triggers conduction in the circuit independently of line voltage magnitude. The circuit includes a transistor switch whose gate receives signals from the time-based signal source to trigger operation of the circuit. The power controller may be in a voltage conversion circuit that converts a line voltage at a lamp terminal to the RMS load voltage usable by a light emitting element of the lamp.
The present inventors have found that these power controllers, which have a time-based pulse source that triggers conduction in the circuit independently of line voltage magnitude, offer opportunities for yet further improvements in lamps and other devices that use these power controllers. The present invention seeks to take advantage of these opportunities.